I attended the Pittsburgh Employment Conference 2007 on August 3-5. First I need to thank Bruce Baker for providing some of the financial resources to make my trip possible. I had an incredible time!

The theme of this year’s conference was, “Employment and Planning for the Second Half of Life.” This theme gave me a lot to think about. The highlights of the conference for me were the presentations about the setting up of Special Needs Trust Funds. Hearing about the social assistance in the U.S., U.K., and in Australia was also informative and useful. Information about the social assistance systems in other countries makes me appreciate the social assistance system I have in Ontario, Canada, even though that still needs improvements.

We learned and saw how helpful service dogs can be. Unfortunately for me, my two “babies” (my cats) wouldn’t welcome a dog into our home regardless of it being a service dog or not!  In all seriousness, service dogs can provide various kinds of assistance to people with disabilities. One guy trained his dog to obey commands he gave his dog by using his AAC device.

There were discussions about losing one or both parents and what that means to an AAC user. I could relate to this topic in some ways. Both of my parents and one step-parent were gone by the time I was eighteen. I had to learn to cope with life really fast since I’m an only child and my relatives live distances from me. It’s tough but a person does learn to manage. These discussions tied into another topic that was discussed which was the topic of planning for the future.

Besides the conference itself, I enjoyed meeting other AAC users. I met people from various parts of the U.S. Ironically I met an AAC user from Ottawa who was at the conference with his friend. Sometimes it takes being out of your country to become friends with someone who lives in the same province as you do. I met Sarah Lever who spoke about leadership and the ISAAC Projects. She mentioned the Information Exchange which, as its editor, obviously is near and dear to my heart.

On Saturday night Bruce Baker treated everyone to a picnic at Minspeak. Besides all the delicious food and desserts it was a time to socialize and make new friends. The evening ended with a funny comedian, who, of course, is an AAC user.

I only heard a few of the presenters on Sunday since my friend and I had to check out of our hotel room and leave for the airport. We are already talking about and looking forward to going to PEC 2009.